Home > Baker's Student Encyclopedia of Music > Saint-Saëns, (Charles-) Camille

celebrated French composer; b. Paris, Oct. 9, 1835; d. Algiers, Dec. 16, 1921. Saint-Saëns's widowed mother sent him to his great-aunt, Charlotte Masson, who taught him piano. He proved exceptionally gifted and gave a performance in a Paris salon before he was five years old. At six he began to compose, and at seven he became a private pupil of Camille Stamaty. So rapid was his progress that he made his pianistic debut at the Salle Pleyel in 1846, playing a WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART concerto and a movement from LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN'S C-minor concerto, with orchestra.

After studying harmony with Pierre Maleden, Saint-Saëns entered the Paris Conservatory, where his teachers were François Benoist (organ) and Fromental Halévy (composition). He won second prize for organ in 1849, and first in 1851. In 1852 he competed unsuccessfully for the Grand Prix de Rome and again in 1864, when he was already a composer of some stature. His Ode à Sainte Cécile for voice and orchestra was awarded the first prize of the Société Sainte-Cécile in 1852.

On Dec. 11, 1853, Saint-Saëns's first numbered symphony was performed. From 1853 to 1857 he was organist at the church of Saint-Merry in Paris. In 1857 he succeeded Louis Lefébure-Wély as organist at the Madeleine. He filled this important position with distinction and soon acquired a great reputation as an organ virtuoso and a master of improvisation. He resigned in 1876 and devoted himself mainly to composition and conducting. He also continued to appear as a pianist and organist.

From 1861 to 1865 Saint-Saëns taught piano at the École Niedermeyer, numbering among his pupils André Messager and GABRIEL FAURÉ. Saint-Saëns was one of the founders of the Société Nationale de Musique in 1871, established to encourage French composers, but withdrew in 1886 when VINCENT D'INDY proposed to include works by foreign composers in its programs.

In 1875 Saint-Saëns married Marie Truffot. Their two sons died in infancy, and they separated in 1881 but never divorced. Madame Saint-Saëns died in Bordeaux in 1950 at the age of 95.

In 1891 Saint-Saëns established a museum in Dieppe (his fathers birthplace), to which he gave his manuscripts and his collection of paintings and other art objects. In 1907 he witnessed the unveiling of his own statue (by Marqueste) in the court foyer of the city's opera house.

Saint-Saëns received many honors. In 1868 he was made a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, in 1884 Officer, and in 1900 Grand Officer. In 1913 he received the Grand-Croix (the highest rank). In 1881 he was elected to the Institut de France. He was also a member of many foreign organizations and received an honorary doctorate of music degree at Cambridge University.

Saint-Saëns visited the U.S. for the first time in 1906. He was a representative of the French government at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in 1915 and conducted his choral work Hail California, written for the occasion, in San Francisco. In 1916, at the age of 81, he made his first tour of South America. He continued to appear in public as conductor of his own works almost to the time of his death. He took part as conductor and pianist in a festival of his works in Athens in May 1920. He played a program of his piano pieces at the Saint-Saëns Museum in Dieppe in 1921. For the winter he went to Algiers, where he died.

The position of Saint-Saëns in French music was very important. His abilities as a performer were extraordinary. He aroused the admiration of RICHARD WAGNER during the latter's stay in Paris in 1860-61 by playing at sight the entire scores of Wagner's operas. Curiously, Saint-Saëns achieved greater recognition in Germany than in France during the initial stages of his career. His most famous opera, SAMSON ET DALILA, was produced in Weimar in 1877 under the direction of Eduard Lassen, to whom the work was suggested by FRANZ LISZT. It was not performed in France until nearly 13 years later, in Rouen. He played his first and third piano concertos for the first time at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig.

Saint-Saëns was a master of orchestral writing, creating rich voicings and harmonies. He also excelled at writing in COUNTERPOINT. At the beginning of his career, these qualities were not yet fully exploited by French composers at the time, the French public preferring a lighter type of music. However, Saint-Saëns overcame this initial opposition and toward the end of his life was regarded as an embodiment of French traditionalism.

The shock of the German invasion of France in World War I made Saint-Saëns abandon his former predilection for German music, and he wrote virulent articles against German art. He was unalterably opposed to modern music and looked askance at CLAUDE DEBUSSY. He regarded later manifestations of musical modernism as outrages and was outspoken in his opinions.

That Saint-Saëns possessed a fine sense of musical characterization and true Gallic wit is demonstrated by his ingenious SUITE CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS. His most famous and favorite work, Saint-Saëns wrote it in 1886 but did not allow it to be published during his lifetime. It includes representation of human animals, a few choice musical parodies, and the beloved The Swan, famous as a cello piece and a dance. The work has been orchestrated (posthumously), and the American poet Ogden Nash composed some verses that are often performed with the work. He also published a book of elegant verse (1890).

Among Saint-Saëns' s compositions are 13 operas, of which only two (Samson et Dalila and Henry VIII, Paris, 1883) are still performed, one ballet, incidental music to five plays, and a pioneering film score, L'Assassinat du Duc de Guise, composed in 1908. Saint-Saëns's current reputation rests primarily on his orchestral music, including five symphonies (especially No. 3, for organ and orchestra; c.1886), five piano concertos (all first performed with Saint-Saëns as soloist), three violin concertos, two cello concertos, many symphonic poems, orchestral suites, overtures, dances, rhapsodies, marches, and band music.

Saint-Saëns also composed chamber music for various ensembles, piano pieces, sacred vocal works, secular choral works, song cycles, and about 100 solo songs. He prepared cadenzas to Mozart's piano concertos K.482 and K.491, and to Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto and Violin Concerto, and various transcriptions and arrangements.